Lauren Long/The Post-StandardA first-edition copy of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," by Ernest Hemingway, from 1940: Columnist Sean Kirst is running a contest to give away the book, which was donated to the NIE used book sale.

After flipping open the book, I realized it was a first edition copy from 1940. The dust jacket was gone but the book remains in good shape, leading me to this idea:

We’ll hold a little contest to give readers a chance at winning this Hemingway rarity.

The sale will continue on Saturday and Sunday in the old Bon-Ton space at ShoppingTown. Nancy Breault, a Post-Standard circulation manager, said far more space is available this year, making it much easier for customers to browse.

Breault said the goal is raising $35,000 for NIE, a program that encourages teachers to use newspapers in the classroom. To support the sale, the mall is hosting a children’s festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Proceeds benefit Challenger baseball, a Little League program for children with disabilities.

As for me, I see the book sale as an annual conduit to a lost time. It’s increasingly evident that the world I knew as a child is absolutely alien to my children. Much of that evolution is for the better, but any transformation comes with a cost.

Dick Blume/The Post-StandardExpanded space for tens of thousands of books at the Newspaper in Education used book sale, which starts today in the former Bon-Ton space at ShoppingTown Mall.

One big change is in the way many young people read.

That they still read and write is indisputable: Every text message, every Tweet, involves both skills. Still, the electronic devices available to countless boys and girls revolutionized the nature of what we called “down time.” Kids today, on a boring afternoon, can simply pull out the tiny computers in their pockets. They can text their friends, or listen to music, or even watch a movie.

For those of us with gray hair, childhood choices were more limited. On a long day, the only remedy for utter boredom often demanded a visit to the bookshelf in the living room. The books we chose hardly needed to be classics. They simply had to hold our attention at a time when nothing else was happening. Often, they’d provide our first glimpse into the complicated, worrisome land of the adults. That might involve such realities as alcoholism, or betrayal (I’ll always remember Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent), or — in eyebrow-raising fashion — literary tales of sex.

Lauren Long/The Post-Standard"Heroes of the Major Leagues," found at the NIE used book sale: Still containing the 10 cent stamp from 1975 that some child used as a bookmark.

The last subject was illuminated for me, as an 11-year-old, by such philosophers as Jim Bouton, the Major League pitcher whose Ball Four included a startling revelation: Many ballplayers liked to chase women, and those women were not necessarily their wives.

You’ll find at least one copy of “Ball Four” in a box at ShoppingTown. I also spotted The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, an Agatha Christie mystery I hadn’t read since childhood, when its shocking conclusion upended my fifth grade reasoning.

In another box, I came upon Leon Uris' Trinity - the book that caused me to fall in love with the name "Seamus," many years before my wife and I gave that name to our oldest son. At ShoppingTown, too, are the Beverly Cleary books that feature one Henry Huggins, a little boy whose great adventure was built upon this question:

I found vintage sports books that I recalled from boyhood, including Heroes of the Major Leagues, a book at ShoppingTown that still held a 1975 Apollo space mission stamp used long ago as a bookmark by some child. There were boxes upon boxes of “young reader” paperbacks that reminded me, in a vivid flash, of a joyful grade school moment: Every year, there’d be a day when the Scholastic Books order arrived at our classroom, and our teacher might hand over, say, a gleaming copy of My Side of the Mountain, the great book about survival, or some biography of a childhood icon, such as Mickey Mantle.

My guess is that you remember similar moments, which brings me to the simple criteria for getting into the contest for the Hemingway book. Just write a couple of paragraphs detailing your greatest recollection of childhood reading, be it a place, a specific book or a revelation. Make sure to include your name, then email me or write me in care of The Post-Standard, Clinton Square, Syracuse 13221.

For deadlines, let’s say an email has to be sent by noon Monday, and a letter must be postmarked by the same day. I’ll publish the submissions on my blog, and then we’ll throw all the names into a hat. We’ll pull one out, and the winner will get the first edition copy of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

If your memory is lagging and you feel a need to jog it, might I suggest a walk at ShoppingTown among tens of thousands of used books? Trust me: It feels like a reunion with old friends.

Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard. He’ll be on vacation until Aug. 27. You can send him a message on Facebook or Twitter.